• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.295-303
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• 2008

The lingual branch of the trigeminal nerve transmitts general sensation from anterior two thirds of the tongue, also bearing within sheath fibers of chordal tympani branch of the facial nerve. Chorda tympani nerve carries special taste sensations from the anterior two thirds of the tongue and sub-serves the existing trigeminal pathway. Chorda tympani nerve and the lingual nerve innervate to fungiform papilla and distribution of fungiform papilla on tongue dorsum is variable according to anatomical location. The purpose of this report is to assess that the relationship of the number of fungiform papilla and the ability of two-point discrimination of tongu dorsum. Twenty-six healthy students(male:female=13:13) whose mean age was $30{\pm}3$ participated in our study. Two-point discrimination thresholds were measured to evaluate the spatial acuity of touch sensation. The measurement was carried out at the tip and posterolateral region of dorsal tongue. After two-point discrimination test, we took the pictures of their dorsal tongue dyed with methylene blue with digital camera. There were no significant differences between the number of fungiform papilla and the two-point discrimination threshold. But, we found that there were the intraregional and intersubject variations of spatial acuity of the tongue. During the test on the posterolateral region of the dorsal tongue, students appealed the difficulty of discrimination of one point and two point.